Dying to Live

Chapter 15

⏳ ZOE, April

The following morning, I went to see my supervisor and asked her for five days off. I thought it'd be more difficult or that I'd have to explain myself to her, but apparently never missing a single shift over the last year and a half and racking up as much overtime as I had led to certain perks. She gave me the OK without batting an eye and sent me on my way.

"It's a go," I texted Adam as I went back to the nurse's station to get started on my day's work. This time tomorrow, I'd be leaving with him for West Virginia. Everything was happening pretty quickly. 30 hours ago I was standing in his kitchen telling him that I loved him. Tomorrow I'd be in the town where he spent his teenage years, staying in the same house as his family. His brother would be there and even his sister was flying in from New York City. Everybody would be under one roof for a few days before Adam and I returned to Detroit so that he could start his chemo.

I had my original two days off tacked on at the end of the week, so I was already planning to stay over at his place on Friday afternoon right after chemo, Saturday and likely Sunday as well. His mother couldn't come up until Sunday night and I didn't want him to be alone for a second after his initial round of treatments.

I couldn't think about what that weekend with him was going to be like. I needed to just take it one day at a time and enjoy what was right in front of me. He was OK right now. He was excited to see his sister for the first time since Christmas. He could show me his favorite places to hang out as a teen, and maybe even take me to the spot where he'd met that Ouija board girl. We were going to have a lot of fun and it was going to be great.

I went back to my apartment after work, but only long enough to pack a few bags for the remainder of the week. I insisted on making him dinner so I stopped at the store on my way back to his place and picked up everything I needed to get it done. There were a lot of foods he couldn't really eat at the moment, limiting my options slightly, but I was up for the challenge. I took one of my sister's vegetarian recipes for a vegetable stir-fry. It hit all of Adam's dietary requirements and he seemed pretty pumped about it when I suggested it to him.

Adam and I both liked to cook and we were pretty good at it, but I made his kitchen my own that night, barring him from entering. I wanted to better familiarize myself with his appliances and where he kept all of his stuff, for the future. He spent most of the time outside on the porch swing with Joplin. Every now and then I could see her red tennis ball zooming across the backyard toward the fence, the big black dog quickly on its tail.

I loved having somebody to cook for and his reaction when he took the first bite was absolutely worth it.

"I don't usually go all out since it's usually just me," I told him with a proud grin as he took another bite and I did the same with the food in my plate. It really was freaking delicious. "If I had a bigger place I'd probably volunteer to host Thanksgiving every year," I laughed.

"My mom would never allow it to happen anywhere else but their place. She's the queen of that shit... and Christmas – you don't wanna fucking mess with Christmas. That's a pretty big deal too at our house. She's pretty big on entertaining," he answered.

"Duly noted," I laughed. "I imagined your mom would be like that. She seems like the really festive type, which I think is really amazing. I wish my family celebrated more." My last two Christmases were pretty lame. My mother didn't feel like celebrating the first year after my dad died, and last year she decided to go on a cruise with two of her friends instead. My sister was visiting Erik's side of the family in Canada so I just picked up a few extra shifts at the hospital and tried to make the holidays a bit more cheerful for my patients.